joel phelps is a dude that makes me feel genuinely starstruck when i see him. and i see him pretty much every day. joel was in silkworm (which everybody knows is the best band ever) up until their 1994 album libertine, after which he left and started releasing music on his own and with the downer trio. his 1999 album blackbird is easily one of the best rock albums of the last 10 years. it's so fucking good. i dream of making an album this raw and awesome. too bad barely anybody has heard it and it's super hard to find. bla bla bla i love joel phelps. anyway, i guess he's lived in vancouver for a bunch of years and i guess he lives in my neighborhood, because i see him ALL THE FUCKING TIME. he's always sitting in this place called zigg's 2 blocks from my house drinking beer. every time i walk by i look in the window to see if he's in there and if he is i get all "oh my god, it's joel phelps!" and kinda have to fan myself and walk away quickly before i faint. one time i was in line at the grocery store and he was 2 people in front of me. i almost died! thing is, he's all weird and shy and i think he wouldn't be stoked if i ever tried to say anything to him like "you are the greatest human being ever and i love you". he ain't bad looking either... a girl i know tried talking to him once about how amazing his music is and he got really awkward and kinda couldn't say anything or make eye contact. which is cool. i guess who wouldn't get weird about something like that? he barely ever plays live, but when he does next you'll be sure to see the members of ladyhawk standing at the very front and alternately screaming, sobbing, tearing at their clothes and scribbling furiously in their journals.
2008 was a real motherfucker. i mean, not really, but kind of. our album came out (a full year after it was recorded) and we went on tour. a lot. we worked really hard this year and all we have to show for it is massive debt (both band and personal), mental instability, shattered relationships and the overall disdain of everyone we work with. but i'm not bitter. i'm more like an olive- kind of briny, pickle-ish... but tasty. if this all sounds super whiny, it is. it's what i do. i whine. and look, i realize our album is kinda crappy, people have been telling us that from the start, but that's just the way we made it and that's the way we like it. if people don't like it, they should go listen to something better- like bon iver. or bon scott era ac/dc. as the great robert wyatt once wrote: "you may notice some technical inadequacies in some of my performances- a hesitant beat here, a dodgy note there- these are of course entirely deliberate and reproduced as evidence of my almost painful sincerity." totally, dude.
anyway, because it's that time of the year, i thought i'd do a couple year end top ten lists myself. and sticking with the theme of whining, here's:
TOP 10 MOST ANNOYING BAND RELATED THINGS OF 2008:
1. ladyhawke related shit- yes, we know that there's another ladyhawk(e). no, we don't care. why do you? is this ACTUALLY confusing to people? do we have to change our fucking band name?
2. guys who talk about beards- this applies to both music writers and guys (and it's ALWAYS guys) on the street or at shows. dudes are always saying shit to me like "hey, sweet beard, man" or they just want to talk about my beard. i NEVER do that to other guys with beards. honestly, what the fuck is up with that? some dudes even want to touch it. music writers always think they're being super clever and use the fucking dumb made up term "beardos" when they talk about us- like weirdos, but with an extra beard reference thrown in all sneaky! GET IT?? why do people always mention the fact that we have facial hair? if i was writing about a band i wouldn't mention the fact that certain members have boobs or perms or whatever. i just really fucking hate shaving.
3. alcohol references (sorry, another one aimed at music writers)- look, i realize we did this one to ourselves. fully. we deserve it. but it's still annoying to constantly hear yourself refered to as "booze-soaked" when you really don't drink THAT much. i mean, i don't drink that much, the other guys are DRUNKS!
4. stupid, boring interview questions- i also realize it's lame to complain about doing interviews, like "oooh, poor me, people are interested in what i think about things...", but does anyone honestly care about shit like "where did you get your band name?" or "how did your band start?"? NOBODY cares about that shit! and nobody really cares what i think about things and they shouldn't.
5. sound guys- hey dude, i think your ponytail's too tight. these guys take their job pretty seriously, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but after hearing the same lecture about stage volume and turning down literally hundreds of times, WE FUCKING GET IT! that doesn't mean we're going to turn down. i'm sure anybody that plays in a guitar-based rock band can feel me on this. i also love it when sound guys "join the band" and feel they can just throw all kinds of shitty digital reverb and delay all over the vocals. it cracks me up every time.
6. being broke- we make NOOOO money. thing is, i still have to pay rent for all those months i'm away on tour and i can't work when i'm not around, so there's not really any money coming in most of the time. it's also pretty hard to find a job that's cool with you leaving all the time. it's rad to borrow money from your parents when you're 30 because you play in a band and can't buy groceries.
7. drink tickets- its also lame to complain about getting free drinks, but when you're trying to survive on a $10 per diem, tipping the bartender kind of stings. we usually only get 3 tickets per band member, so it's also pretty difficult to cultivate that "booze-soaked" image we're known for.
8. my amp- no comment. anybody want to buy an amp?
9. "club night"- i understand that bars need to make money and that they can make more money if they double book the night, rushing everyone, including the bands, out early so dj's can set up and all new people can come in and get drunk. it makes sense, but fuck off.
10. sketchy promoters trying to rip off bands- it happens all the time and it sucks.
bla bla bla... god, complain much? yeesh!
here's my top ten albums of 2008 (in no particular order):
david bowie- young americans some of this sounds a bit too g.e. smith and the saturday night live band, but the song "win" kills me every time.
yaz- upstairs at eric's i've been obsessed with vince clarke all year. he also did all the music on depeche mode's (pre heroin) debut album that's been ruling me as well.
the grateful dead- s/t it's no secret that i love the dead. lately i've really been jamming their first album, it makes me want to do a shit-load of speed next time we record.
laid back- keep smiling best. album. ever. best. cover. ever.
fleetwood mac- tusk this is what millions of dollars, 2 years of studio time and mountains of cocaine can get you- a sprawling monster double album/difficult artistic statement that alienates almost all of your fans, but actually deeply rules. i've cried listening to this more than once. totally emo.
no kids- come into my house nick krgovich is a genius.
tommy james and the shondells- the best of tommy james and the shondells come on... crimson and clover? i think we're alone now? forget about it. i just want to make music that sounds like this.
double negative- the wonderful and frightening world of double negative the last time we played in chapel hill, these guys were the only people at our show. for some reason they like our band. anyway, after the show one of the dudes gave me a copy of this album and it totally fucking kills.
crass- stations of the crass i'll admit, i rarely make it all the way through this album in one go. let's just say it's a little... preachy. but it's got some jams.
guided by voices- alien lanes 28 short songs that are really more like one long song. this has probably been in my top 10 since it came out.
honerable mention: anything by the dwight twilley band.
hey, wait a minute! only one of those albums came out in 2008! turns out we weren't the only ones releasing crappy albums this year, so was EVERYONE ELSE! just kidding, there were probably lots of good albums released in 2008, i just have no interest in hearing them. that's just me.
AND there's no better way to celebrate christmas than by listening to grim, satanic black metal! so here's my top 10 all-time favorite black metal albums (also in no particular order)...
bathory- the return pretty much the first "actual" black metal album and kind of the best. i listened to this once on a faulty record player that kept slowing down and speeding up and got thoroughly creeped out.
ulver- nattens madrigal there's a legend that this was recorded in the forest under the full moon. obviously bullshit. the guitar sound on this album is insane. ulver means wolves in norwegian, pretty badass.
mayhem- live in leipzig apparently the only surviving recording of the legendary line-up featuring dead, euronymous and varg vikarnes. if you don't know the dirt on these dudes, look it up. this recording is so shitty, but completely ripping and includes between song banter in "grim" voice.
emperor- anthems to the welkin at dusk emperor gets props for being ambitious, even if their "symphonic" elements are just kind of cheesy synth lines. the overall effect is one of swirling, buzzing, chaotic noise, everything is lost in an almost ambient haze. kind of the my bloody valentine of black metal (that's a joke. is it just me or is my bloody valentine the most overly name-checked band EVER? i mean, i love my bloody valentine, EVERYBODY loves my bloody valentine. let's all just shut the fuck up about it!)
black witchery/conqueror- hellstorm of evil vengeance (split) i'm not so much into the conqueror stuff (but it's technically more "war metal" anyway), but the black witchery songs are easily the shittiest, fastest, most brutal shit around. nothing but straight blast beats all the way. also, great title, guys.
xasthur- the funeral of being this shit is totally emo.
gorgoroth- under the sign of hell gorgoroth is ACTUALLY scary. they make most other black metal bands look like bon iver. you should really check out vbs.tv's excellent documentary about gorgoroth's main guy gaahl. totally insane. http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=3009727001
darkthrone- a blaze in the northern sky this just sounds like a crusty, lo-fi version of shitty early 90's hardcore and it truly doesn't get much better than that.
burzum- aske e.p. i can't really look past some of the shittier aspects of varg vikarnes character (murderer, white supremecist..), but nobody has a better black metal howl than him.
immortal- battles in the north these guys are kind of like the savage garden of black metal.
p.s. if you ever get bored just youtube "funny metallica moments"... remember when those guys were actually "booze-soaked"?
see you in the new year! and if not, see you in hell!
why are people so fucking stupid? ok, so you know how there's another ladyhawk? well there is and actually she is a lot more popular than we will ever be, so it should actually be her asking "so you know there's another ladyhawk?" and you responding "no." she spells her name with an e at the end just like the movie that we are not named after. she's cool, it's dance music, mostly for girls. we've been corresponding through myspace for years, like "hey ladyhawke, what's up?" and she's like "hey ladyhawk, not much. you?". it's friendly. neither of us care about the fact that we have similar names, we are obviously no threat to her popularity and nobody is going to go to one of her shows expecting to see us. however, it seems to be a bit more of a problem on our end. it only started to come up when we were in europe and mainly the u.k., where every bit of press we did was more about her and how we had the same name (it's not the fucking same, it's similar. i know it's nit-picky, but if your name was becky and i spelled it beckee, you'd be like "that's not me", right?). anyway, people would turn up at the shows and seem pretty confused or bummed out when they saw us get on stage, which is actually a pretty common response at most of our shows, so we never really thought anything of it. well, the other night we played in london (that's london, ONTARIO, mind you. swinging london...) and some pretty awesome shit went down. these two drunk frat boy type dudes were standing at the very front of the stage as we were setting up, kinda talking to darcy and saying things like "man, we are so excited to see her" and "we listened to (her song) back of the van all the way here" and "where is she?" and "when is she coming out?" and so on. by this point i was laughing, because i honestly thought these fucking clowns were JOKING. so we did our classic "she's just in the bathroom" line and started playing. well, halfway through the first song, the dudes yell "FUCK YOU!" and "YOU GUYS ARE FUCKING ASSHOLES!" whilst fingering darcy (not that way) before storming away. BUT WAIT! it get's better! the first thing these guys did when they got to the show was go directly to the merch table and buy fucking records and t-shirts WITH OUR FUCKING FACES ON THEM! yup, that's right. anyway, these guys march directly back to the table and the one guy frisbees his record at the esteemed fred squire (who was working merch for us) and leave the bar, cursing and spitting. they dropped like 50 bucks on merch for the wrong fucking band! i can't feel bad about that shit, it's just too fucking priceless. as i always say, fuck 'em if they can't take a joke! the joke in this case being my life and my art. p.s. sorry if this story is a bit rambling and disjointed, i am so fucking nyquil-ed out i can barely see and my hands feel like rubber spatulas. p.p.s. i love you toronto.
maybe i'm just stoned, but... what the fuck? there are tons of taco time commercials on youtube, all with the same woman. weird stuff. check it out! it made me curious about other commercials out there, maybe some real canadian classics like:
not really a commercial, i guess, but amazing none the less. and that's really my actual mom and dad! anyway, one of the best things about touring across canada is driving for 8-12 hours every day and getting to sample the wonderful and wide variety of roadside fast food franchises, such as the above mentioned taco time. another great thing is experiencing that 8-12 hour drive with an excruciating case of diarhea. brutal. sorry if that's too much info. fuck taco time. i am currently sitting in a motel room in thunder bay on our "atumnal tour 2008" (sic) with attack in black and shotgun jimmie, along with bonus hangers-on will kidman and the esteemed fred squire. if you want to check out a tour video blog that jimmie has been doing go to:
myspace.com/autumnaltour2008
it's some pretty funny stuff. shotgun jimmie is a hero in canada. speaking of canada, just gorgeous this time of year! and:
pee-wee gets real! problem is: that shit is just so fucking gooood... love ya!
so, ladyhawk recently went to europe. while i was there i did a little tour diary for inexplicable long-time ladyhawk fans the fader. if you want to check it out along with various other ladyhawk related things that the fader has published, go here: http://www.thefader.com/tag/ladyhawk
i wrote a 5th tour diary entry, but never sent it. too dark and depressing. maybe i'll get into it here someday. by the way, i've been meaning to update this page more often (more for my own sake than anything), but i have neither a computer or internet access at my house (i know.) and using the computer at the laundromat seems too depressing to me, so...
hi, it's me again. yes i know i haven't updated this in a while. i've been outside at the beach trying to enjoy my life and what little summer we get in vancouver, not sitting in front of a fucking computer writing inane bullshit that nobody will read. anyway, have you heard the news? gnomes are real! ya, and they are taking over a small town in argentina. no shit! a couple weeks ago, darcy bumped into a dude that used to sing for a pretty sweet vancouver band who was really excited about these "gnomes" and told him all about how "real" they are and stuff... needless to say, i was intrigued. here, check it out for yourself:
pretty crazy stuff! that gnome can shimmy! there's more of that shit out there if you're interested (or just bored like me). don't even get me started about the chupacabra!
so, we played at fuck yeah fest in l.a. on the labor day weekend... pretty fun, got to see some awesome bands... like NEGATIVE FUCKING APPROACH! i mean, come on!
for a bunch of 2000 year old dudes they still blew fucked up off the stage (no offense to those guys). i also saw a band called the monotonix from isreal, who had easily the most straight up insane set i've ever seen in my life. at some points the entire band was crowd surfing at the same time (including the drummer and his drums) while playing. i know it's all a shtick, but amazing none the less. our own set went down pretty ok, i think we played well, but as usual people weren't really feeling it. no surprise there, i guess. i did however get to try out my new thing of doing 10 minutes of impromtu stand up comedy before our set, which is maybe why the crowd was less than stoked by our actual music. i guess everbody just blew their collective load roaring with laughter at my hilarious banter...oh well, fuck them if they can't take a joke. in fact, fuck anybody who can't take a joke! fuck all y'all! ok, sorry. did you hear about the particle accelerator they built in switzerland? pretty crazy. just google it. a guy at my work was so convinced that the whole world was going to be sucked into a black hole when they fired that thing up this morning that he went out and got totally shit faced last night and wasn't going to come in to work today(i mean, he wouldn't have to if there was no more world to work in, right?). anyway, he finally made it in at around 11, hungover as fuck... and still the world turns.
we are currently on tour with the best band in canada (formerly the hardest working band in canada) THE CONSTANTINES. in the spirit of excess, we are doing it on a bus. that's right, a tour bus. pretty sweet. i am at this moment sitting on said bus in beautiful san francisco, basking in the recirculating odors of 10 grown men who haven't showered in a couple days. i call the flavor "dude gumbo". anyway, we started off our day yesterday (a day off) in mt. shasta at a local swimming hole, then big bry webb grilled us up a couple slabs of ribs while we drunkenly played an epic bocce ball tournament (tournament of farts. ha ha, get it? like their album, but... get it?). the evening ended with more drinking (surprise, surprise) and with me giving several home job tattoos. good times indeed. the only bummer is that steve "baby eagle" lambke (featured above) broke his hand playing frisbee (seriously) in victoria the other day and has been hanging out there getting surgery. fucked up, right? this is why you should never do anything... anyway, he should be hooking back up with us in the next few days. godspeed, steve! feel free to send good vibes his way. here's the new cons video:
dear seattle, i'm sorry. no, i really am. i know i apologized from the stage several times (which is super lame), but i am truly, madly, deeply sorry. last night i played the worst show i have ever played. it was fucked. it was worse than that show at la sala rosa in montreal last year (which was hellishly awful). i felt like a 14 year old playing for the first time in front of people. fuck that. i felt like a thirty year old playing songs that i've played literally hundreds of times as if i'd never heard them before, or ever played a guitar before. i wasn't even drunk. last night after i went to bed i had nightmares about the show, it just went on and on and on and i couldn't get off the stage. it was a bummer. if you were at the show last night, i promise you we are not the shittiest band in the world. we are probably the fourth or fifth shittiest band in the world. i'm just embarrassed about the whole thing. totally my fault, not the other dudes, and i apologize to them as well. it seems like we always have a hard time in seattle, not sure why, but we do. at least i do. anyway, no use crying over spilt milk, right? it's all in the past... now, if i can just go ahead with my life and never show my face in seattle ever again, we should be all good.
yes my last entry was depressing. sorry. things got dark. things would have gotten dark for me even if every show on that tour had been awesome. it was 6 weeks, which for me is a long time to be sitting in a van. we had fun, don't think we didn't, but it all just starts to close in on you after a while. whining and complaining about everything is just how i make sense of the world. that's just me. but we made it. home again, home again jiggity-jig. tomorrow we leave again for 3 and a half weeks and i'm actually looking forward to it. go figure. anyway, i'm not throwing in the towel yet. there will be another ladyhawk album, and it will probably suck just as hard as this one...BUT IN A DIFFERENT WAY! just kidding, it will suck in the same way. one great thing about this last tour was getting to know NEVA DINOVA. we did all six weeks with those lecherous nebraskan corn-guzzlers and they are truly great. jacob bellows writes songs that girls like and then bring their boyfriends to the show and then they like the songs too. beautiful songs. AND he's fucking funny. and tough. don't fuck with him. or this kid. props to petey "kingpin" klein. one love.
so here i am, chilling in oklahoma city with my man brad wittle, watching a townes van zandt dvd... i tried to do a post in the middle of last week, but i deleted it. nobody wants to read the rantings of a man deep in the darkest fathoms of depression (i mean, nobody WOULD read it, but...), talking about how the world is ending and how nobody cares about anything and how everything is utterly meaningless and pointless. sounds great, dude. i then went into a detailed recounting of my life-long struggle with depression and how i used to take pills and how now i just medicate myself with drugs and alcohol. i don't know, i just got bummed out. i think it's taken me this long to realize exactly who i am, where i am and where i'm going. i got some perspective on my life. the writhing adolescent punk in me looked up for a minute and saw the horizon, saw that the end of the road is closer than when he last looked. is it a bad thing in life to hold onto your fantasies when reality is so fucked up? i guess not. it's really hard for me not to view everything in the context of what i feel to be the "big picture", which is that everything is ultimately, utterly pointless and meaningless while at the same time being full of secret meaning and significance. this is the essential conflict. i generally view things from the dark side. i've realized that very few people will care about the music i make, but some people will care a lot. what's better?: a lot of people kind of caring about your songs (and probably just one song they heard online) for a minute or a couple people feeling deeply affected by something you've done. at pretty much every show on this tour there's been one or two people who REALLY love our band. thank you. you rule and you make me want to keep going. unfortunately, it's hard not to feel like you're drowning in a sea of indifference and snide hostility. people don't know who we are and if they do, they ain't feeling it. that's cool, i get it. everyone's a critic. a lot of people think our record is shit, and maybe it is, but it's my shit and it's the best shit that i can shit, you know? i'm just trying to make something good and maybe i'll never get close, but at least i'm trying and at least i'm putting it out there... right?
"...you tell me that i make no difference, but at least i'm fucking trying! what the fuck have you done?"
i love rock and roll and i know that it will never die.
a few weeks ago, i was driving the delivery van for my work along east cordova street in vancouver when i see this guy with crazy hair walking on the sidewalk carrying an electric guitar by the neck. i think to myself, "hey, that bum has a pretty sweet guitar."... it was dan bejar. i actually get a bit starstruck when i see dan, i feel like a blushing teenage girl. not only is he pretty much the best guy at writing songs around, he's also devastatingly handsome. i've been known to rant about how amazing destroyer is, i mean, RUBIES...pffft! forget about it. i feel like i'm just now starting to really understand what some of the songs are about on albums like thief and streethawk: a seduction and i've listened to them for years! his lyrics are so fast and dense and full of sly inferences and dry humour, there's layers to that shit...like a god damn onion! okay... i'm getting excited. we played in st. louis the other night and destroyer was playing across town, so we booked it out of our show and over there in time to catch a couple songs. great stuff. i managed to play it cool and keep it together when we were all hanging out after. thank god. the other great thing was that our friend scott august was touring with them selling their merch. scott is responsible for the monkey faces in the insert of our new album, which were these scary animatronic characters that would groan to life and "perform" songs like "ramblin' man" at monkey time pizza in the local mini-golf course/arcade when we were teenagers. they were getting pretty ragged and jolty by the time they were finally retired a few years ago. i'm not sure what took their place. anyway, scott is an amazing artist. you should google him and read about his art and look at some examples of the shit he's up to these days. be sure you put in "scott august kelowna" or you'll get a lot of stuff about a guy who does native american inspired new age music, which could also be cool or at least relaxing.
dear united states of america, why is this weird to you? what is gross about a pile of fries topped with cheese curds and smothered in gravy? you guys like to eat shit that's really bad for you, so this should be right up your alley, right? seriously, it's delicious. AND it's great when you're hungover. although this is a french thing, it's available all across canada. you can get poutine in your combo at most fast food chains across the country. poutine is single-handedly responsible for bringing about peace between anglos and francophones here, everyone can agree on poutine... god's perfect food. maybe by embracing poutine, america could abandon it's primitive war-mongering ways and move towards a state of true peaceful enlightenment. maybe not. for a while, sean was obsessed with poutine. i mean, who hasn't been, but this was weird... he was eating it upwards of four times a week. it was getting excessive and we were all becoming concerned for his physical and mental health. it started to take over his personality. his girlfriend was complaining that he was starting to smell weird. the last straw came when he tried to climb in the bathtub with her while eating a large tray of dairy queen poutine. i shit you not. she laid down the law and the spell was broken, but for how long... to this day he gets a strange far away look in his eyes at the mention of it, like he's come in from a long day at battle to a banquet table piled high with crisp, golden french fries with cascading piles of the choicest cheese curds and lusty wenches ladeling thick brown gravy over it all from a great steaming cauldren. anyway, we're in montreal (the cradle of poutine) chilling out for a couple days in the midst of our massive (and massively unsuccessful) american tour. the "bury the hate in 2008" tour. i'm just pushin' it down, storing it up... nice. also,
ryan comes from rutland, which is an area in kelowna, b.c. that has been a skid stronghold since the 80's. in the 90's those skids' younger brothers kinda took over the scene, bringing on the era of the skomies (skid-homies). we found this shit last night and it kind of made us nostalgic for the old home turf.
first off: though these guys are not skids per se, laying patches has long been a popular skid past-time. the camaros of yesteryear have been replaced by the low-rider pick up trucks of today. these guys have nothing to do but get drunk and do this, as evidenced by the length of this "greatest patches" clip. enjoy!
then, after a long day of drinking and laying patches, these guys like to get together and spit mad street truth. this one is looooong, but...rewarding?
one time in houston we played with this band called wicked poser (it may have been spelled differently, like "wykkidd poseur" or something stupid like that) who were like this shitty kinda electro-dance noise duo (they had more fans than we did or probably do, so shitty is relative). it was right before south by southwest, so you'd be playing shows with a bunch of other random bands on their way to austin, super mellow country dudes and disco punks and whatever. i mean, i guess touring for us is kinda like that all the time anyway so...whatever (incidentally, that same night we played with the birds of avalon, who are easily one of the best rock bands touring right now. they completely fucking shred and you should go see them any chance you get. birds of avalon. awesome. i digress.) so anyway, it's like a 5 band free show, these guys get up there and do their thing, not my thing but a reasonably full room of people seem into it (most of which leave immediately after), so what do i know. i wasn't really watching so i never got a good look at who was actually in the band. after they played there was another band and then us. there seemed to be a small commotion in the bar as the second band played, but i didn't really take notice, just a drunk dude breaking a bottle or something. so we get up there and start into our first song, about halfway in i feel as though somebody shot me in the chest. i kinda stop playing a bit, but try and continue, realizing that somebody in the crowd threw something at me. after the song is over i look down and see that it's a large metal bottle opener. i didn't see who threw it, but they threw it hard. it fucking hurt and i was fucking pissed. whatever, fuck this crowd, i finish the set in a foul mood, putting as much hate into every song as i can muster. during our set i was also aware of more commotion in the rear of the bar, i just figured it was the same asshole as earlier and probably the same asshole that fucked with me. after the set i went outside for some air (this was easily the smokiest bar i have ever been in, my eyes were stinging. it sucked.) and came face to face with the obvious culprit in the process of being thrown out of the bar by a couple of the male staff members (including a huge actual u.f.c. dude). he was more wasted than anybody should ever be, and was dangerously close to getting his head crushed by these guys. they were just telling him to get out, go home, walk away, but he wouldn't. half an hour earlier i had wanted to kill the fucker myself, but now, seeing how truly wasted he was, i kind of took pity (i have almost been this guy a few times myself) and tried to reason with him. "just go, man" i said, "just go home, these guys are serious, they will hurt you." he seemed to consider this for a moment before continuing to berate and taunt the bouncers. he was wearing a long bike lock chain around his torso which he then took off and began swinging around over his head, narrowly missing the face of a girl and one of the staff guys. things were getting real. fast. one of the guys was screaming that he was going to quit his job then and there just so he could beat the shit out of this fool, i think the girl who almost got hit was his girlfriend. the big u.f.c. guy, displaying a chuck norris level of deadly calm, tried firmly explaining the seriousness of the situation to no avail. there was a small crowd watching by this point and everyone, myself included, now really wanted to see this dude get pounded. i wanted to get a few hits in of my own. i can't even remember the kind of shit this guy was saying, but it was gnarly and wasted or not, he deserved to be beat and it seemed like he was slowly realizing that he was on his own. he stumbled off around the corner alive and unscathed. talking with the guys i found out that the commotion earlier had been this guy who had been in the first band, wikkid posur or whatever, walking around the bar with his dick out and grabbing at girls boobs, this is when they threw him out. and then, guess who comes back around the corner, this time weaving dangerously in traffic on a bike, bailing painfully in front of the club. he continues shouting things at the bouncers, trying to egg them on, but by this time it all seemed too pathetic and they just laughed at him. he kept walking into the relatively busy street, one time almost walking in front of a bus, before climbing back onto his bike and wobbling away into the night, shouting and cursing. the next day i had a purple bruise over my heart. fuck that guy and fuck his stupid band forever. also, you should watch the dvd of the last rocket from the crypt show. someone throws something at speedo that apparently fractures his cheek bone, but he keeps playing and it fucking rules. also,
I know I was going to post a tour diary for our last little run through Canada, but you know I’m lazy and really, who cares? I know you don’t, because you are me and I’m the only person who reads this shit. Here’s the general idea: Drove across the states, stopping in fargo, north dakota and madison, wisconsin where we got drunk and hung out with some friends. Next we went up to Ontario where we drove around and played some shows and got drunk and hung out with friends. Then we made our way back west with black mountain, getting drunk and stoned and hanging out. That’s it. I mean, tons of hilarious shit went down, but like I said, who cares? I’ve always been the kind of person who thinks about taking pictures, but always forgets to and kind of just goes with the moment…and then forgets about it. I’m stupid like that.
Ever watch pump up the volume with christian slater? i just watched it again recently. I remember when I first saw it, christian slater seemed so cool and bad ass... now he just seems gross. Could he get any greasier? The only decent thing in the movie is how hot and alternative Samantha mathis is. Her first movie, she briefly shows her breasts... sleazy film exec: “Samantha honey, you’re great, very talented…This is your big break, just give us a little titty and everyone’s happy, right? Sign here…” it’s not really a great movie, the whole teen angst angle comes off as pretty quaint, but I think it was a lot of people’s first exposure to some decent bands bla bla bla… can’t remember why I brought it up. i guess he thought no one was listening to his little pirate radio show and then it turns out that all the repressed and confused local teens are hanging on his every word -they need him, he becomes the thing that focuses their angst and dissatisfaction into full rebellion against the stifling world of their parents and teachers. good for them. when i was a teenager i was too ruled by fear of getting in trouble and it showing up on my "permanent record" to rebel much, plus my parents have always been really cool and open and understanding. there wasn't much to rebel against, so i just listened to records, played my guitar and bided my time until i could get out and never look back. i hated school. it was easy for me, but traumatic in other ways. i was fat, somewhat awkward and crippled by religious guilt- a winning combo. the only thing that kept me going was music and i guess it still is.
Anyway, we’re currently back on tour. 6 weeks in America. For the love of god… If I’m not batshit crazy now, talk to me in a month and a half. Driving through Wyoming on our way to Denver from salt lake city, beautiful country… Just bought a litre of whiskey for $7, god bless America and god help me.
So, I just turned 30. I am now officially A MAN. No more fucking around, time to straighten up and fly right and all that… it’s weird, I feel like I had a harder time in my mid twenties, mourning the death of my “youth” than I did turning 30. No big deal, still a fucking loser with no money and no idea what I’m doing. All I know is that I’m going to be sitting in this fucking van on and off for the entire year, not making any money, becoming increasingly paranoid and sketchy and obsessing about my health. That’s what I do. With hours of nothing to do every day my brain goes into weird loops of obsessive thought, usually related to my health or death or sex or sometimes things darker and more sinister until I become convinced that I’m straight up mentally ill. Then I obsess about that. Bla bla bla me me me whine whine… BORING. I’ll try to be funnier next time, but right now there’s only fear and loathing. and dave.
i know i haven't updated this guy in a while. i've been busy. and lazy. and crazy. our record came out a little while back. finally. my friends like it, or at least they say they do. it's weird being in a band sometimes because, depending on who you are, you are putting something out into the world that people you don't know and may never know are hearing and judging and evaluating. some guy writes a review of it for his student paper or whatever. i find it weird that there is information out there about me (and i realize that this is included in that) because i feel like who cares? i guess somebody might. i'd read a blog of a band i was into maybe. i guess it's just the idea of celebrity that weirds me out, even on a microscopic level like this. somebody in belgium knows who i am. i'm rambling. don't worry, the "fame" isn't going to my head. anyway, i guess i'm just trying to say that it's weird to read a review of something you did where the person writing it makes some kind of personal comment about you. i really try to not read reviews, but sometimes it's hard not to. narcissistic urges. it sucks to admit, but i actually get kind of upset if i read something negative. i guess who wouldn't, right? everybody wants to be liked. i mean, i'm the most negative person around, i don't like anything and am quick to judge, but as soon as anybody levels any of that shit my way -the sulking begins. i'm very sensitive. ya dog. i am in sudbury, ontario in the basement of the bar we just played in about to sleep in said basement. tour is fun, i'm extremely paranoid and anxious about almost everything, and i feel like i'm losing my voice. this is my single biggest source of insanity, everything else is just gravy. but seriously, tour is really fucking fun. we just got to hang out with a bunch of great friends in toronto and montreal and st.catherines and are about to meet up with black mountain in winnepeg. but first, thunder bay... i promise to post a full tour diary in a bit for anyone who may care, but as i've said before, i'm lazy. i love canada.
for the 3 or 4 of you who may read this, the label has officially announced that we have a new record coming out... in march. yes, still 2 months away. apparently it's already on the internet somewhere, but you didn't hear that from me. the impression i get is that this is our "difficult" second album, you know, where a band is so eager to distance themselves from their "overly commercial" first album that they go and get "experimental" in the studio and make an album without obvious hit singles and try to get all deep and discuss "issues" and get emotionally naked and confessional and shit. and use a lot of quotation marks when discribing it. anyway, i think the album is pretty good, it rocks out, doesn't get too weird... not like that bizarre e.p. we put out that nobody heard! talk about self indulgent... there's a song from the new album floating around on the internet if you want a sample (that is, if you don't feel like stealing the whole album, which would be cool of you) courtesy of the babes and hunks at fader magazine who love us for some reason.
when you were a kid do you ever remember there being a fad or craze where kids would breathe really heavy and hyperventilate and then another kid would put pressure on their neck or chest or something and make them pass out? maybe it was just a west coast thing, but i clearly remember witnessing this phenomenon in action at parties (i use the term "party" loosely as this pertains to 10 or 11 year olds), and it really weirded me out. it's funny how kid's will do all kinds of fucked up things to get, well, fucked up. like stopping the flow of blood and oxygen to your brain until you loose consciousness. honestly, just huff some glue or gas, it's easier and you get basically the same effect with the added bonus of permanent brain damage. have you ever fainted? it is the worst fucking feeling. everything starts to get really small and intense and dark and your ears buzz and you feel all cold and clammy, then the next thing you know you open your eyes with absolutely no idea where you are or what's going on. fun times. unfortunately, this is a sensation i know all too well. i am a fainter. i have this thing where if i get up to pee in the middle of the night i have to be careful and sit down, otherwise it's lights out! seriously, this has happened to me many times, i have woken up on bathroom floors, in bathtubs wrapped in shower curtains, with my face smashed up against the toilet and so on. i have been to the doctor and been told that this is apparently quite common, i am in good health and have nothing to worry about. huh. anyway, i've learned it's best to just sit down. another thing i've noticed is that i'm becoming increasingly squeemish. i never used to be this way, but now if somebody even starts to talk about broken bones or blood i start to swoon. i literally get weak in the knees. i know! what a puss, right? a guy at my work recently ripped a big chunk of skin off his hand and i had to sit down for half an hour! like an old woman! i actually feel kind of nauseous right now just thinking about it. up until last night i thought that my "little problem" only related to the real world and actual blood and guts, but not so! last night i watched rob zombie's remake of halloween and actually started to faint! the movie itself isn't really that great, but all the stabbing? forget about it. it's fucking weird, i have seen hundreds of gory horror movies and have never felt like that before. except for maybe when i tried to watch the passion of the christ. gross. now, keep in mind i was vastly stoned at the time (actually, i think i was stoned when i watched the passion of the christ as well. not recommended.), but honestly? i'm just glad i wasn't in the movie theater, can you imagine that? i would be the guy who fainted in the movie theater because rob zombie just brought it on too real for me. fucking beautiful.
